The Symbolism of Shelley's "To a Skylark" Author(s): E. Wayne Marjarum Reviewed work(s): Source: PMLA, Vol. 52, No.

3 (Sep., 1937), pp. 911-913 Published by: Modern Language Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/458692 . Accessed: 12/12/2011 04:12
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E. Wayne Marjarum

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tains some shrewd comments on some of his early writings. The criticism of the first Discourse is like Kippis's, only more vehement.12 Although his enthusiasm for Rousseau is far too extravagant, it was even exceeded two years later by Arthur Young, whose Letters Concerning the Present State of the French Nation (1769) declared Rousseau to be "one of the most remarkable men that ever appeared in the world," whose sentiments "do not flow from caprice, whimsicalness, or a phantastic love of being different from other people, but from a philosophical, genuine, and consistent, originality of character."13Young, indeed, later changed his mind; but his opinion at this time is one of many which point to the existence of a vigorous, if not widespread, sympathy for Rousseau's ideas during the first twenty years of the reception of his works in England.
RICHARDB. SEWALL

Yale University
12 See

etc. (London,1767),2-19. Fuseli, Remarks,

13 See Young,Letters, in etc. (London,1769),351-360. The entirepassagewas reprinted

XL(Feb., 1769), 109-113. the Monthly Review, 9. THE SYMBOLISM OF SHELLEY'S "TO A SKYLARK"

THE latter part of Shelley's "To a Skylark" has been interpreted by Professor Irving T. Richards as an impassioned address to an ideal being isolated from mundanity, to whom the poet addresses "rhetorical questions concerning the source of his ideal's inspiration."' These questions begin in line 71, and herald Shelley's recital of the world's woe and his own noble impatience with his own achievement. Before this point the poem is descriptive; one is aware mainly of the rapturous singing of the lark, and only afterward comes the "reiteration of the ideal being's full isolation from mundanity."2 But a comparison of the imagery of the first fifty lines with that of other poems in which Shelley deals with an ideal being transcending common experience shows that here also his purpose and method were determined by the dualism inherent in much of his profoundest speculation, and that the descriptive parts of the poem bear the same stamp as the reflective stanzas. The symbolic significance of much of Shelley's descriptive verse has been traced to Shelley's haunting sense of an ideal beauty, unknown but manifesting itself fragmentarily through the apertures of sense and in the intuitions of his noblest moments. The "unseen Power" addressed in the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" becomes incarnate in the radiant maidens who appear in very many of the poems.3 In almost every case, the beauty of the apparition is born upon the senses by its own inner radiance; as a foil to this effulgence, we find either that the light is rendered supportable by a veil, lest the beholder, Actaeon-like, be destroyed by the beauty of the naked idea; or that the glowing being herself becomes invisible, "dark with excessive bright."
1 "A Note on SourceInfluences in Shelley'sCloud and Skylark," PMLA, L (1935),5622 Loc.cit. 567. 3 Benjamin P. Kurtz, ThePursuit of Death(New York, 1933).

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Comments and Criticism

On this basis is constructed much of the imagery of the first fifty lines of "To a Skylark." The similes which they employ are for the most part transformations of the feminine symbols by means of which Shelley habitually sought to give tangible form to his metaphysical concepts. Of all that he might have sung, and that others have sung, about the lark, his mind dwells upon the wonder that the skylark remains invisible while its being, like that of the ideal, is inferred from the aura of beauty which fills the world of the listener. That aspect of his experience which first captured his fancy and led to self-questioning was the antithesis between common perception as a way of knowing, and the more exquisite awareness which proceeds from inference-"Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery." He immediately develops his figure through his favorite medium, radiance and light; and in the fourth stanza comes the statement of theme which runs through most of the next six: "Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight." First the lark becomes a star melting "In the broad daylight," and then the moon vanishing in the light of a white dawn "Until we hardly see-we feel that it is there." Here the skylark is conceived in the same imagery as the incarnate Idea of "The Triumph of Life," who, in the interpretation of Mr. Kurtz, symbolizes ideal beauty:4 And the fair shapewanedin the cominglight, As veil by veil the silent splendour drops FromLucifer,amid the chrysolite Of sunrise,ere it tinge the mountain-tops; And as the presenceof that fairestplanet, Althoughunseen,is felt by one who hopes ... So knew I in that light's severeexcess The presenceof that Shapewhichon the stream Moved, as I moved along the wilderness(412-426). Note the antithesis implied, in both poems, between the verbs see and feel. The next simile again employs the moon, the orbed maiden now being obscured by cloud, but yet evident by its radiance: "The moon rains our her beams, and Heaven is overflowed." Once again, the "Shadow of beauty unbeheld." In the eighth stanza he presents the ideal shining with a glorious radiance which clothes or even hides the form whence it emanates: Like a Poet hidden In the light of thought (36-37). Turn now to The Witch of Atlas: A lovely lady garmentedin light Fromher own beauty (81-82). In Una Favola also appears the maiden so lovely as scarcely to be visible, and in Epipsychidion he tells us that in the visioned wanderings of his youth,

4Op.cit.,p. 332.

E. Wayne Marjarum
She met me, robedin such exceedingglory, That I beheldher not (199-200).

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The following stanza likening the skylark to the maiden withdrawn from common sight "in secret hour" continues the theme in perfect, but not habitual imagery: the divine emanation is sound rather than light. One more stanza: the glow-worm in its dell of dew, "Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view." The image is analogous to the maidens of the other poems, except that here the flowers and grass form the veil. It has the same juxtaposition of elements as the veiled and luminous maiden of Alastor, or the Witch of Atlas, who took threads of mist and light and star-beams, And with these threadsa subtle veil she woveA Shadowfor the splendour of her love (151-152). These stanzas of "To a Skylark" are hence stamped with Shelley's native way of viewing things. Over the entire poem presides his awareness of two modes of being, the ideal and the actual. In the descriptive stanzas the ideal is manifested despite the barriers of sense; in the latter stanzas Shelley imaginatively projects himself to a point of vantage, the "ideal being's full isolation from mundanity." It should be observed that Shelley's first perception of the skylark as hidden is not necessarily the result of a philosophical system, but may be a matter of common experience. The similes which follow must also present the analogy of hidden essences partially revealed. Such an interpretation is simple and logical; it implies that Shelley was objectively aware during composition of the need of maintaining that analogy and took an artistic means to secure it. The consistency of the descriptive stanzas is thus logically accounted for; but a logical unity between those and later stanzas is less readily apparent. The alternative interpretation does not seek a formal unity between the two groups, but rather a native unity born of common origin in a unique personality. It is supported by the fact that a series of felicitous similes corresponding to his announced purpose ("What is most like thee?") are in a significant number of instances constructed of accidents of light and shade similar to those which Shelley habitually employed to represent the ideal being which the skylark itself finally symbolizes. Shelley has recorded a particular experience, the song of an unseen bird; this experience he has interpreted in conformity with his profoundest thoughts just as Wordsworth felt during the song of the unseen cuckoo a recollected emotion linking him to boyhood and therefore to the master-light of all his seeing. If this be true, the descriptive stanzas bear an original relationship to the reflective stanzas in which lies the basic unity of the poem, and they may best be viewed as the inevitable expression of a mind so constituted.
E. WAYNE MARJARUM

University of Rochester